by Liz Glodek

Artwork, “A Crowded Saturday”  by Jack Savage

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While driving I-80 in Pennsylvania,

near the Ohio border, I drove past

the dead body of a bear. Roadkill

I had never seen before. An animal

I have never seen outside a zoo,

rigor-frozen on the side of road,

its head snapped back, snout very near

the white line and car tires.

It had surprised me.

I didn’t even think to tell my husband

who sat next to me, looking up directions.

I wondered about the driver who hit it.

The astonishment at knocking the bear

down to its death on a car-filled

highway. And the question of how it

got to the interstate in the first place.